Stephen King Why Do We Crave Horror Movies Analysis

The Impact of Stephen King on American Culture “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, sometimes, they win.” Stephen King is one of the most revered authors of the horror genre. He has around 130 works and has sold 350 million copies of his novels, making King very well known especially in pop culture.

Why we crave horror movies by Stephen King. King states how everyone is mentally ill in there own way and we crave the tempted desire to be scared. When approaching a roller coaster we look for the best one. The one with the most turns and the biggest drops we also do this when choosing a scary movie, we daire the nightmare to be scared. As humans we always try and seek for the violent, hence why people like watching Football and UFC for the thrill of the roller coaster ride with the ups, downs, and the unknown of what will happen next.

By offering insight into a question, the title evokes thoughts and prime memories of horror movies from the past in the reader even before the essay begins. The Length and Set-Up: Including the preface, the essay is four pages long and divided

In Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” he explains the reasons why we desire horror films. He starts by stating that everyone is mentally ill inside, and that all of us have a way of concealing it. King explains why people who watch horror movies prove that they can’t be frightened. He conveys his reasoning “to show that we can, that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster.” The author then re-establishes to everyone people are normal from the actual terrifying image they see in the movies.

These descriptions made the house all more frightening because the reader shaped the house from their own fears. The novel does not sway the reader into believing what the reason for the hauntings like the film does. The movie has a time limit, that the novel does not which makes the novel go more in depth on the characters and

Special effects have helped to draw in more viewers to horror movies due to the incredible realism and improved storytelling that filmmakers have been able to include. According to an article published by Mark Griffiths, Dr. Deidre Johnson conducted a sample of 220 American adolescents, where the four primary reasons why people were motivated to watch horror movies were gore watching, thrill watching, independent watching, and problem watching and that “each of these four viewing motivations are found to be related to viewers’ cognitive and affective responses to horror movies.” With there being a variety of ways for people to enjoy horror movies, special effects have allowed for each of these four viewing motivations to be enhanced with better realism, and improved storytelling to keep all audiences interested and intrigued. According to an article published by Jody Keisner, a professor at the University of Nebraska, said: “Creators of horror movies rely on quintessential fact, and because of it, special effects have become the horror movie’s means to survival and popularity”(413). The inclusion of special effects has allowed for horror movies to appeal to a vaster audience and has allowed for filmmakers to test the boundaries of special effects with the use of more blood and gore.

It's easier for the viewer to feel scared while watching a visual version other than the written version. There is a dark film over the camera during the clip, and it emphasizes the Tre music starts to crescendo as the story progresses and nears its iconic ending. The angles get close-up into the actors' grimace and terrified faces. For the lighting, there is barely any light to show how dark the setting and story is. With these suspense devices being used, it's more effective compared to imagery to get the full grasp of terror and horror that comes from this

It is used to make the story become more real, and easier for the reader to place himself in the story, and feel the same way as the characters. Stephen King is using the terror effect throughout the whole story. He is making the feeling of dread and anticipation the main factors in the horrifying experience. He also uses the horror effect, when he is writing about The Boogeyman, but he leaves out the gross out part. Edgar Allan Poe is in the same way using both terror and horror to give the reader the most horrifying experience.

He characterizes fear by saying that it includes a belief that one is endangered by what they fear and one will be motivated to act as a result of this belief (Walton 263). Since the person watching the horror movie cannot be said to exhibit either of these qualities, they cannot be said to be genuinely afraid. Walton explains the phenomenon of “fear” when one watches a horror movie by saying that when the person watches the movie, they enter a game of make-believe in which they have a fictional belief that they are threatened, and therefore possess fictional fear (Walton 264). The problem with this view is that the person watching the movie is not aware that they are playing this game. Since games require awareness of the structure of the game and objectives in order to play, it cannot be said that the person watching a horror movie is really playing a game, since they have no such awareness.

Nightmare is meaning to show the things we are scared/ afraid of facing our fear. King mentions how “we also go re-establish our feelings of essential normality”, which might mean that after watching horror we think about how the real world is (king, Why we crave. 1). Does he really want to make us think about why we over think the most precise thought.

In this three genres, the main characteristic is the excess of the body. According to Kristen Thompson, she said “the minute the viewer begins to notice style for its own sake, or watch works which do not provide such thorough motivation, excess comes forward and must affect narrative meaning. Excess does not equal style, but the two are closely linked because they both involve the material of the film”. It is means that in pornography films, horror films and melodrama, the body was appeared similar to the spectacle to the pleasures already informed. It is not only a customary body that turns into the object of spectacle, yet the female body and it is through "the sexual immersion of the female body that gatherings of people of different types have gotten some of their most intense sensations".

There are multiple people who are intrigue and love horror movies without knowing the reason. In Stephan Kings essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies” he does his best to find an answer to the question “why do people crave horror movies?” Throughout his essay he came up with certain key points to answer the question. At the beginning of his essay, he makes a bold statement that “we are all mentally ill.” He motions that people just watch horror movies to portray their fearlessness while suppressing their true emotions.

Why do people like fear, because of how it is presented. Fear can be presented in many shapes and sizes. For an example, on Halloween, many haunted houses are open to the public and they go there to get scared. Haunted houses have played a big role for Halloween and how they produce fear. But there is a story behind Halloween and how it produces fear.

Horror is a genre that creates fear and terror by scaring the audience. Human’s worst fears and nightmares are recreated into films to re-induce the fear and then sold out at film premiers? Horror can creates creatures from something as little as an imagination. A source that I found that relates with horror and my concentration of the unknown and unexpected is a documentary called Crash of the Century. This documentary was created by Discovery World based on a true aviation disaster.

Horror movies are a “fairytale” to us and allow us to “ become children again, seeing things in pure blacks and whites.” Insanity is a matter of degree.